He joined the British Indian Navy in 1943 but due to Jawaharlal Nehru's persuasion, he transferred to the army in 1946 and completed his training from Royal School of Artillery in UK. After partition of India in 1947 he joined Pakistan army & was promoted to Major in 1954. Before retiring from the armed forces he served at East Pakistan Industrial Development Corporation.

Since he was a Bengali in the Pakistan Army, he was subject to racial discrimination. He did not sacrifice his dignity, and one such example was his comment against Ayub Khan.

Only people from good families can recognise other people from good ones

— said Quazi Nuruzzaman when Ayub Khan said that he did not see people from good families in East Pakistan.

In October 1958 after General Ayub Khan declared Martial Law in Pakistan, he & Major Salauddin Amin were the only two officers who refused to sign a document of allegiance pledging loyalty to then President of Pakistan, General Ayub Khan.[4]

In 1971, he joined the Liberation War. He was senior to all the sector commanders & was given staff position by C-in-COsmani.[5]

During the war, Bangladesh was divided into eleven sectors and each of those sectors had a Sector Commander who would direct the guerrilla warfare. He succeeded MajorNajmul Haque as Commander of Sector 7 who died in a road crash on Nov 26, 1971 in India.[6] He played a key role in Bangladesh's achieving independence from Pakistan during the 1971 war.

Post war he was tasked with gathering injured freedom fighters from Kolkata.[5][4]

He was awarded the Bir Uttom award, which is the second-highest award for individual gallantry in Bangladesh. As thousands of Mukti Bahini volunteers, mostly farmers, were killed and did not receive any recognition, he chose not to accept any gallantry award. He rejected the Bir Uttom award.